Almost 100 nurses resigned from GPHC in first six months of 2023

The country’s main medical institution, the Georgetown Public Hospital, is facing a worrying shortage of nurses, as more nurses and other medical staff continue to leave their jobs at the hospital for opportunities elsewhere.

In the first six months of the year, almost 100 nurses have resigned from the Georgetown Hospital (GPHC), according to the Director of Medical and Professional Services, Dr Navindranauth Rambarran.

The hospital which has over 450 beds should have at least 1200 nurses to cater for the needs of patients. However, the hospital is far below that figure.

“Our data shows that we are somewhere between 50-60%, it’s a flux, for example, we were able to secure some nurses right after training a few months ago, and that boosted our amounts but then just a few days ago we got a few resignations, and so it is in a constant flux,” Dr Rambarran explained.

Painting a troubling picture of the situation, the Director of Medical Services said at times, a single nurse is forced to manage 15 patients while others are asked to work overtime to provide much needed services.

“This hospital is at least a 450-bed hospital and it requires nursing ratios that are certainly higher than we currently have. In the ICU for example, the ideal ratio for nurses to patients is 1:1 and many of times, we can’t reasonably reach that. Of course, in the first world, they also do not have, always, have the luxury of having 1:1 ratio in the ICU. Sometimes, we are 1:4, 1:3 and that’s not close to ideal but that’s how realistically it happens. On the open wards, ratios of 1:6 are acceptable and things that we could work with. Sometimes, because of shortage, we are 1:10 or even 1:15,” he explained.

The shortage is as a result of the rapid migration of nurses.

Many nurses have been leaving their jobs here in Guyana to take up opportunities in the UK, the US, Canada and other developed nations.

Director of Medical Services, Dr. Navindranauth Rambarran

“There has been a general trend of nurses leaving for other regions where obviously, the packages seem to be more attractive. This has happened as a continuous flow, where, for example, in the UK and the US where they are reporting severe shortages of nurses. Their systems are now, in some ways, taking up nurses from our regions, and that is now reflecting as a shortage in our system,” Dr. Rambarran said.

While admitting that the situation is a difficult one to manage, the Director of Medical Services said the Georgetown Hospital is pushing ahead with its efforts to improve the quality of care it offers.

The hospital is training more Patient Care Assistants and Nursing Aides to build their capacity to respond to the current needs of the hospital.

“So, we are taking a position of all hands-on board. So, we have different levels of nursing, and affiliated nursing staff. So, for example, we have patient assistants and nurse aides and so on, and these are being trained strategically in certain areas that we see that they could offset some of the responsibilities and some of the demand on the fully train nurses,” Dr Rambarran told News Source.

Nationally, there is a shortage of more than 1,200 nurses in the public healthcare system.

President Irfaan Ali recently acknowledged the shortage and said the Government is looking to hire nurses from Cuba to cushion the impact. (Svetlana Marshall)